Remove SANDAG's planning blinders

Reducing freeway congestion was not a priority during SANDAG's
recent transportation workshop. Sure, you could pick up a
countywide map of bicycle paths, examine a transit map showing the
proposed Sprinter extension from Escondido to Lake Hodges, and even
view a poster showing the goal of converting the freeways into toll
roads. But no congestion relief!

To be sure, the freeways won't be transformed into tollways
immediately. At first it will be only a couple of designated lanes,
just like the two managed lanes on Interstate 15. Then they will be
enlarged "just a bit," much like the current expansion of those two
lanes to four. Soon they'll say,
"There's no more land,
we must regretfully convert more freeway
lanes to toll lanes."

Ultimately, all freeway lanes will be eliminated, completely
replaced with toll lanes.

We can expect SANDAG to respond with vigorous denials, claiming
"There is no plan" to convert freeways into tollways. But when
SANDAG says, "There is no plan," it just means there is no formal
document revealing their true intentions. It is these undocumented,
informal policies ("forcing people out of their cars by making it
painful to drive" is another one) that actually

guide the planning process.

Charging a toll to use the roads is more than adding insult to
injury. We already pay an
excise tax
of 36.3 cents per gallon of gas
for freeways, onto which the
TransNet sales tax is calculated. We pay the sales tax on the
excise tax, which means we are
taxed on a
tax.
Then there are taxes to repay the infrastructure bonds
intended for congestion relief. Adding yet another tax -- the toll
-- is more like adding insult to injury to offense to outrage.

Although most people object to proliferating taxes and the
stress of continued gridlock, the plan to preserve freeway
congestion and implement toll roads remains intact. You may wonder,
does SANDAG even know what we need? They don't really want to know,
as seen on their Web site. The
"SANDAG in the news"
page of links to selected articles avoids
diverse opinion. For example, a North County Times column
supporting increased taxes (
"SANDAG should charge solo drivers,"
Richard Riehl, July 6) is
included, but a prior item in the NCT filled with ideas using
existing revenue (
"Thinking outside of SANDAG's box,"
Community Forum [by George
Crissman], July 5) is missing. Apparently SANDAG is wearing
blinders!

We have a brief opportunity to remove those blinders so SANDAG
can see the need for more regular freeway lanes without additional
taxes, since just half of their $42 billion transportation budget
would build enough lanes to completely eliminate freeway congestion
(and that's allowing for significant cost overruns, of course)!